Generating endomorphism rings of infinite direct sums and products of modules. (Q1770507)

Let \(M\) be a module and \(E\) be the endomorphism ring of the direct sum or direct product of \(\Omega\) copies of \(M\). The author proves two statements for \(E\) if \(\Omega\) is infinite: Theorem 3. The ring \(E\) is not the union of a chain of at most \(\Omega\) subrings. Theorem 5. For every set \(U\) generating \(E\) as a ring, there is a natural number \(n\) such that every element of \(E\) can be expressed as a ring word of length \(n\) in \(U\). A ring word is an expression built from the letters \(\pm 1\), \(0\) and the elements of \(U\) using addition and multiplication. The length is the total number of occurrences of the letters. The proof is clever, short and elementary. The main tool is set theoretic. The theorems and their proofs are motivated by analogous results on symmetric groups by \textit{G. M. Bergman} [Generating infinite symmetric groups, arXiv:/math.GR/0401304] and \textit{H. D. Macpherson} and \textit{P. M. Neumann} [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 42, No. 1, 64-84 (1990; Zbl 0668.20005)].